Before the War Bells Rang
by CleotheDreamer
Summary: 'How do we know of places we have never been? How do we understand that which we have not experienced' - In which Crowley would tear apart Heaven and Hell if any harm came to his angel.


**Summary: 'How do we know of places we have never been? How do we understand that which we have not experienced?' In which Crowley would tear apart Heaven and Hell if any harm came to his angel. **

**AN: Do angels have veins? Blood? Nerves? I had so many lines in here that I had to delete because they didn't make sense anatomically with them being angels and demons and all. **

**Anyways, here's an angsty-ish one-shot of Crowley's thoughts including after Az's bookshop burns down.**

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How far did he fall? Did he saunter vaguely downward from the high precipice of morality or did he crash and burn with it; falling like a comet through the stratosphere and orbiting the world like a dying star?

He didn't actually know how it happened - if the fall was slow or fast, short or long, hot or cold. He just remembered the burn of Sulphur and the bubble of his skin as he was flayed alive and dropped like a stone in a lake. He supposed that it was hot, but it might have been deathly cold as well. It could have taken years or seconds. It could've been half a breath.

He didn't know, but he wanted to.

He wanted to know and that was his problem, wasn't it? He wanted to understand, he was just too damn curious. He was a pillar of 'Why? Why? Why?', a dissenter in the midst of ordered rows of thought. His mind was made of rollercoaster tracks, always jumping and turning and twisting like a funhouse of ideas. He was still so curious, so confused at the idea of even the world itself.

He wasn't with Lucifer - wasn't planning an uprising because of a deep-rooted hatred towards humanity. No, quite the opposite. Humans were fascinating creatures filled with free will and minds that never stopped thinking, never stopped collecting knowledge and seeking it out. He never expected to fall for his questions. He was the opposite of Lucifer, after all – a patron for humanity. He was a protector, a dissenter in goodwill.

At least, that's what he had thought. But questions - questions weren't allowed and so, he burned. Burned for his humanity? His curiosity? His dissension in and of itself?

He never knew and yet, that was always the crux of the issue. He was so very bad at knowing, only ever just good at guessing, thinking, pondering. He was a philosopher before the word had even rolled off the tongues of man, a poet - a dreamer. Some might have thought angels were better for that sort of thing, but no, they were always too stuffy, too strict. He supposed Aziraphale was an intellectual of sorts, but he was too scared, too intimidated, to really do more than _acknowledge_ – never quite allowing himself comprehension.

There were benefits to being a demon, Crowley supposed. All that free will and choice that angels were so scared of - hiding in their complacency and normality – while demons had free reign of choice.

To an extent.

He certainly wasn't expected to be good now, was he? He could be, but was it encouraged? Was it easy?

No – no, it wasn't. He might have been chased down or kicked out or… actually, he had no idea what might have happened if he started being 'good'. He wasn't really bad per se, but the other demons didn't really understand the human culture so he could gladly prance around causing minor disturbances and fall into some semblance of choice and goodness.

There were times when Crowley just wished he were human - that he could look to the heavens and pray to Jesus and rest upon his death in eternal paradise. That he could be forgiven - could be himself.

But that wasn't God's plan. None of his thoughts - his beliefs, and desires - none of that fit with God's plan.

(_He didn't belong here. He didn't belong anywhere._)

It was the doubt that got to him, that ate at his soul and scratched the back of his throat like cloying smoke. He couldn't discern reality from fiction, couldn't differentiate the prophecies from their truths.

How could he put his faith in a being who did not give him a reason to? Earth was his home more than Heaven or Hell ever would be, but why? It wasn't supposed to be that way. Doubt and confusion – they weren't supposed to crawl like a disease through his mind. He wasn't supposed to fall down to the wasteland of the world and crawl on his belly through the dirt.

Well, he actually didn't know about what was 'supposed to' happen. That was the point. He was stuck and alone and floating through the vastness of eternity without knowing why or how or when.

And it was cold, so very cold down here on Earth, on this island in the middle of the seas - the ocean of infinity. But, he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel the cold anymore, couldn't feel the sun on the breeze. Falling hurt, it scalded and it burned and left his angelic body behind somewhere, but he knew that the feeling in his limbs, the life in him, was just a bared and broken soul now, without the gift of pleasant touch to let him heal.

Where did doubt get him? What did it do but purvey an endless stream of suffering and loneliness? He didn't belong with the demons. He didn't fit in the realms of evil. He didn't belong with the angels either, but he tried. He tried so hard to integrate into someone's life - to matter.

But did it matter? Did _he _matter?

In the grand scheme of things, he was but a speck. His footprint left galaxies, but him? His stars, the nebulas that swirled out of his fingertips centuries ago, were much more important than himself. His creations were more memorable than their creator.

Was this how God felt like? Was this the reason they imposed their will onto the world? Was it to gain some semblance of control or to remain a constant presence never to be forgotten - never to be disposed of?

Was the world a playground for the Almighty to stomp on?

He didn't know. Again, he didn't know and he knew he never would. Or, at least he expected he would never know. He didn't think that at the end of time God would strut down to Earth and deliver a powerpoint presentation on all their reasoning's and motives.

(He has a list of questions, though, just in case. But, don't tell anyone. He liked to pretend he wasn't of Faith anymore; it was easier that way. To stare God in the face and denounce them was much easier than the blood of betrayal rushing through his veins.)

Aziraphale was the light, the hope at the end of his torturous tunnel of an existence. Aziraphale shone like the Galaxy Andromeda, sparkling with starlight and warmth. But, he couldn't feel – couldn't experience that warmth and touch the blessed being that was an angel. He might have burned anew from the holy water dripping like honey from his mouth.

What was worse was that he might not have burned and instead, felt nothing at all.

He thought of sunshine and remembered its' warmth, but it was fleeting and his fingers were void of feeling, of the softness that could come from Aziraphale's hair or the coolness of the water dripping from the pregnant clouds above.

His hands which were once such magnificent things – masters of weaving the fabric reality and created by God themselves – were devoid of the pleasures of touch. His skin echoed with emptiness and the only thing he felt was the _burn, burn, burn_ of the Sulphur pit he descended into so long ago.

He thought this might have been the worst of his punishment: that he would be reminded of his fall, of his burning, twisting, melting soul at all opportunities, at every shift of cloth on his skin.

But this separation - this unholy desire for love and life and joy that he got, that he wanted so badly he could taste it on his forked tongue – was the worst. This status quo that made the only one he'd ever loved torn between hatred and tolerance in regard to himself hollowed out the hole in his chest even further.

He was in love with an angel who could never love him back. He was in love with that which was born and bred to hate him.

Did God plan this? Was cruelty an issue when it came to immortality? For Crowley had seen the cruelty of Heaven and Hell. Crowley had watched as angels killed cities and cringed at every pointless death of mankind. Crowley had come face to face with the abyss of eternity and not succumbed but he had watched a thousand others fall into its inky depths. He suspected that falling from Heaven never really changed anything about his character, but falling into the throws of immortality?

Dismissing all that is remotely mortal or temporary turned monsters out of men and celestials, alike.

He, on the other hand, clung to mortality with a clenched fist and bloody nails, standing amongst mankind and learning, thinking, discovering. He breathed humanity in like it was life itself, wandering aimlessly among the bright pinpricks of knowledge that sprouted from human minds.

Humans were oh, so much better at thinking than angels and demons.

But, he was done thinking. Wondering hurt sometimes. It ached a deep thrum and brought tears to his yellowed eyes. Wondering was a line of questions – a spiral to his doom and the root of all his issues. Wondering was best left avoided even when it might have been beneficial.

But he could wonder now because he had hit rock bottom. There was nothing left for him to lose as he watched Aziraphale's bookstore succumb to hungry, licking flames. He knew it, he could feel it. He had been drowning but now he lay curled and shivering upon the seafloor.

How do we know of places we have never been? How do we understand that which we have not experienced?

And yet, even though rock bottom was someplace he was unacquainted with, he knew. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had sunk his lowest.

There was nothing beautiful about pain. There wasn't any way to describe the melting of skin besides bare honesty and base descriptions. There was no place for waxing poetry about the tears stirring in one's eyes.

(Jesus wept.)

There was nothing beautiful about this, the heat of a fire and the smell of burning paper watering his eyes far less than grief.

For Crowley was made of poorly constructed sandpaper parts. He was taped together in a coarse mockery of a soul. And his tape – his glue that stuck in the corners of his being, his knotted rope to reality – was gone.

Aziraphale's bookstore burned and it hurt. Because falling – falling couldn't compare to the bone-deep ache of a soul, the shattered pieces of heart ripping through his psyche. Falling hurt, but not like this.

Never quite like this.

(Jesus wept and Crowley watched as sin broke the back of man's salvation. Crowley thought he might have broken right with him.)

But that was before and this was now. Aziraphale was gone – burned in the fire of Prometheus – and he could wonder all he wanted.

Crowley didn't like to wonder, but in that moment, he did. It was the only hope he had left, after all.

('I wonder if he escaped somehow,' flittered through his head before he could stop himself. Wondering got him nowhere before but now he had nothing to hold him back.)

There was nothing left to lose and both Heaven and Hell would pay. Because Crowley was a teetering sand castle, and the fires of hell burned his skin into a jagged and abrasive mockery of glass villas. Without Aziraphale, his sharp bladed tongue could flick out punishment to those who had ever thought they could hurt that which he clung to so whole-heartedly.

He was tied to nothing, a speck amongst the wind. But, he would turn his sole particle into a sandstorm that swept through the entirety of the Earth. He would raze the armies of Heaven and Hell to the ground.

(And later, when Aziraphale appears so abruptly, Crowley will wonder why he even pretended to care about anything else but the stupid angel in front of him.)


End file.
